Dates

• Existence: 1877 - 1954

Biography

Helen Crawfurd-Anderson (1877-1954) was a suffragette and Communist activist. Although born in the Gorbals, Glasgow, Helen was educated in Ipswich and London, returning to Glasgow in 1894. At 21, she married evangelical minister Alexander Montgomery Crawfurd. A member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) from 1910-1914 Crawfurd-Anderson was arrested on numerous occasions for her activism, being imprisoned in Holloway, London, Duke Street, Glasgow, and Perth prisons. Following her departure from the WSPU owing to its pro-war stance, she subsequently joined the Independent Labour Party, and played a leading role during the 1915 Glasgow rent strikes. She also became one of the founding members of the Women's Peace Crusade in 1917. She later led the British delegation to the Zurich WIL Congress in 1919. Heavily influenced by a meeting with Lenin in Moscow she left the Independent Labour Party and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain upon her return home, standing unsuccessfully as a Communist candidate for Glasgow's Govan ward in the Municipal Elections of 1921. During her period of service as Secretary of the Workers' International Relief organisation she travelled regularly across the country supporting communities in need. She retired to Dunoon in 1935 but continued her activism, serving as Dunoon's first female councillor between 1945-1948. Helen died in Dunoon in 1954. [Source: Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women, 2006]

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